Processor

All the nasty back and forth between Apple and Samsung — this was probably bound to be the result. After a long run of providing processors to Apple for the iPhone, Samsung has been replaced. Further teardown results show that Apple has a new manufacturing partner for the A8.

This morning Apple revealed the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6 Plus, and the chip that’ll be bringing them intelligence. You’ll find the Apple A8 Chip inside both of these machines - that’ll be 64-big second-generation processing power. That’ll be brought to you on a super tiny 20-nanometer process, too.

Intel has taken the wraps off of its latest flagship performance processors, the Extreme line, formerly known as Haswell-E. The trio of chips - the Core i7-5820K, Core i7-5930K, and Core i7-5960X - and the new Intel X99 Express chipset that launches alongside them target gaming and multimedia systems, with up to eight cores and clock speeds as high as 3.9GHz.

Qualcomm has traditionally been seen as a mountain, mighty yet unmoving. The hype first around octa-core processors and then 64-bit CPUs have not spurred it into a frenzy like its competitors have. Now, however, the giant has woken up and is ready to unleash the Snapdragon 615, expected to stir up the SoC market with its 64-bit octa-core goodness.

Samsung may have just unveiled its "fashion-sensible" Galaxy Alpha smartphone, but working behind the scenes is a new Eynos processor to deliver unmatched power to the next generation of Samsung devices. But even if the new Exynos 5430 manages to outperform most of the leading mobile processors in the market, it still manages to draw less power than its own predecessors, thanks to the use of a new manufacturing process.

NVIDIA's first Tegra K1 has been making waves today in the Acer Chromebook 13, but now it's the turn of its arguably even more interesting "Project Denver" sibling to take the spotlight. Based on NVIDIA's own 64-bit dualcores, Tegra K1 "Denver" will be the first 64-bit ARM processor for Android, and the chip firm says it's already working on an Android L build to suit.

The chip family Intel believes will give it the edge in future ultraportables, tablets, and 2-in-1 hybrids, not to mention the Internet of Things, will show up in systems by the holidays, as 14nm production kicks off. Intel Core M, codenamed Broadwell, will be the first chip to use the new production process, which promises better battery life but less heat.

A computer chip that thinks like a neuron in the human brain and sips a fraction of the power of traditional processors could finally open the door to cognitive computing, IBM researchers claim today. Dubbed IBM SyNAPSE, the groundbreaking chip squeezes a million "programmable neurons" and 256 million "programmable synapses" into something the size of a postage stamp, but which could one day allow for advanced digital versions of human senses.

Mobile chips don't necessarily need to get faster, they just need to get smarter, at least that's what video processing specialist Movidius believes, and it's launching a highly-focused vision processor, Myriad 2, to prove it. The follow-up to the original Myriad 1 co-processor - found inside Google's Project Tango 3D-scanning tablet - Myriad 2 promises a 20x boost in performance at computational photography, such as real-time mapping, 360-degree panoramic video, and more, all with the eventual goal of making the cameras we carry as clever as human vision. I caught up with Movidius CEO Remi El-Ouazzane to find out why you might want Myriad 2 inside your next smartphone or wearable.

This week the Nexus 8 appears to be headed to the United States in the first of what Google likely hopes will be many, many more shipments through the future. While specifics are scant, the Google Nexus 8 will likely roll with either an LG or HTC make, an at-least 8-inch display, and Android L under the hood.

One leaked configuration of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 4 phablet shows an unreleased Exynos 5433 processor. While that may sound rather unexciting, scores from AnTuTu has just revealed that this Samsung octa-core chip outperforms Qualcomm's top high-end processors.

The processor for the new Amazon Fire Phone has been revealed as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800, the same SoC (system on chip) released on the most recent Kindle Fire model tablet. This processor was one of the biggest releases for Qualcomm back when they announced it in early 2013, sporting a coming to "virtually every global OEM" tag early on.